I had a work class today on "finding your talents."* Sadly, I continue to discover that mine are creative arts skills and not something useful like chartered** accountancy. However, they had the dreaded requisite "talk with your group" and HAHAHAHAHAH on this. Seriously, I had nothing to say and nothing that I wanted to say and I did not want to step up and facilitate ten long ass minutes of Group Discussion Of Our Talents. One guy was all "I don't know what we're supposed to talk about" for about 8 minutes, one lady dropped in late and didn't know what was going on and the fourth sensibly bailed entirely. I got called out, did I want to speak, and I said no, I don't have anything I want to say about my talents. What's the point, they're all not work related and therefore I can't bring them into my job and therefore I can't become "engaged" at work again.

*...Yeah, I don't know why I signed up for that? I got the release time and I thought it was going to be more fun, somehow? Whatever.
** No, I don't know what that is, but they seemed to bring it up on Monty Python a lot.

Therapy was more "I hate my inner child and want her to die" vs. "You have to love and care for your inner child" stuff, again. I don't feel like elaborating on that.

In other news, karaoke is officially back starting next Monday, i.e. Ashley's 21st birthday. Just as my schedule frees up for a month! 5-8 p.m. I don't know if anyone else will GO, mind you, but Redhead Sarah, Valentin, Theater Jim (as opposed to Karaoke Jim, announcing) and Ashley responded to the group text. So there's that.

I made a cloche hat for Kelly for the play, who said her head diameter was 24 inches. This comes out to a HUUUUUUGE hat and I strongly suspect this is...not right, because trying it on my head was like a goddamned bell. I think I'll let her know that if it's too big, she can mail it back and I can redo it in smaller. Shouldn't be too hard to pull this one out if I need to.

After work, I did a class in how to write crossword puzzles: * First you pick a theme, can be almost anything: categories, mashups, hidden words, letter patterns, reparsing phrases, anagrams, add/subtract letters or sounds, change/move a letter (tainted love to painted love), quotes. Rebus = two or more letters in one square. Schroedinger Puzzles = more than one correct answer for the same set of clues. ("Clinton Elected" or "BobDole Elected")

Titles and Revealers: sometimes themes aren't all that original, they get ideas via Twitter or friends. Puzzles and theme answers are generally symmetrical. Should fit 15x15 grid, standard grid. Symmetry: rotational, mirror, diagonal.

Other crossword rules: * No 2-letter words * No unchecked squares * No duplicated entries * The "breakfast test" (don't gross anyone out) * Know your audience....but know when to break them.

Grids are not copyrighted! Can just use whatever you find and fill it. "The least amount of money you will make" for a puzzle "is $150." "I think I made about 100 crappy puzzles before I sent one out." Regular answers shouldn't be longer than the theme answers. They use a program called "Crossfire" that fills in the grid for you. Crosswordese= words only used in crosswords, or used too often. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crosswordese It's nice that "Ono" is being identified as other than "Lennon's wife."

Writing clues: Laura loves this, involves jokes and trivia Theme, synonym, example, punning, fill-in-the-blank, trivia. "My favorite clue for oleo is "I CAN believe it's not butter."

Give your puzzle to some friends to test-solve, consider feedback and make edits, test-solve other people's puzzles. "Your puzzle isn't the deepest (?) of your (?), it's a contract between you and the solver."

After that, I went over to Dawn's to discuss car decorating for Saturday. She is all hyped with ideas and wants to take her car and decorate it (fine by me!) and do the driving, which I am totally thrilled with as well so I can take pics. She wants to attach various crocheted items to the car, basically, and she has the free time to do that, hahahah. I will be bringing things over tomorrow for that. And the funny hat collection. We also called Jenny (Dawn's coworker invitee, I met her years ago but it's been awhile) and she is down with all of the above and vaccinated to boot. Then Dawn and I hung out for awhile showing off crafts and crocheting. I'm happy to have people to go with on this one.

I went by the theater to pick up the green screen (Jean forgot to give it to me yesterday) and saw Jadine doing the "What's Up, Duloc?" filming. I got the green screen and Jean said to ask Steve what to do about it. Get a clothesline, he said. Though he did grumble that this show isn't going to make any money because nobody wants to watch online any more. Don't know what to tell you there.... ah well.

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